Celebrations & Bright Spots
Boosting Science Vocabulary with Morphology
Tiffany Tindle, a 3rd-grade teacher at South Hancock Elementary, completed the LETRS professional development opportunity through the Kentucky Reading Academies. She is putting her structured literacy training into action by using morphology to make science vocabulary more memorable for her students.
Tindle starts with Greek roots, showing students how these connect to scientific terms. Together, the class brainstorms related words, explores definitions on Etymonline.com, and creates kid-friendly definitions. Then, using a Phoneme-Grapheme chart, students match sounds to possible spellings they’ve learned, like identifying that a short "e" sound can be written as "e " or "ea."
 When new science words come up, students use the root words to break down meanings. “The kids love it,” she shares, noting that a 4th-grade teacher sees these connections carrying over from students Tindle had in class the previous year. In the following photos, students define roots like "hydro/hydra" and apply them to solve real-world problems, such as designing a system to keep plants hydrated during a school break.
 Students working together to define roots.
 Students applying new knowledge to solve real-world problems.
To learn more about evidence-based practices to teach vocabulary, review Vocabulary At a Glance. Vocabulary At a Glance is part of KDE’s Literacy At a Glance Collection, a collection of resources defining some of the most critical components of literacy, instructional recommendations related to each component and an understanding of how each component aligns with the Kentucky Academic Standards for Reading and Writing.
For a glance at how students in Marshall County are experiencing Phonemic Awareness and Phonics instruction, two other literacy components included in the Literacy At a Glance collection, read the Celebrations & Bright Spots featured in the October 1 Early Literacy Newsletter.
ICYMI: Kentucky Awarded the Federal 2024 Comprehensive Literacy State Development Grant
On September 3, 2024, the United States Department of Education (USDE) awarded the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) a 5-year, $54,985,544.00, Comprehensive Literacy State Development (CLSD) grant to advance literacy skills, including pre-literacy skills, reading and writing, with an emphasis on disadvantaged children, including children living in poverty, English learners and children with disabilities.
The CLSD discretionary grant program, renamed Kentucky Comprehensive Literacy 2025 (KyCL 25), will provide competitive funding to districts to strengthen high-quality instructional resources (HQIRs) and curriculum based professional learning (CBPL) for all levels. KyCL 25 will focus on increasing student literacy achievement through four project goals.
Goal 1: Instructional staff will use evidence-based, literacy HQIRs to deliver coherent and aligned instruction to all students.
Goal 2: Instructional staff will use evidence-based, literacy HQIRs to support struggling readers to narrow the achievement gap for our target populations in a cycle of continuous improvement.
Goal 3: Instructional staff will be engaged in sustained, aligned, job-embedded, high-quality CBPL focused on a literacy HQIR.
Goal 4: Schools will increase family engagement in the literacy development of their student(s) and awareness of resources to aid in supplemental literacy instruction at home.
The KDE Office of Teaching and Learning is issuing a Request for Application (RFA) for subgrantees for the KyCL 25 grant that can be found on the Competitive Grants Webpage. Funding will be based on the number of students in each district feeder system designated as small, medium and large. The number of awards will depend on the number and size of the awarded applicants. The KDE anticipates funding approximately 40 districts. The four-year award for small districts would be $1,065,000.00, medium districts would be $1,300,000.00 and large districts would be $1,560,000.00. All public-school districts and state schools can apply. No matching funds are required. RFA’s should be submitted by Dec. 18, 2024, at 4 p.m. ET. Funding for this grant will begin on July 1, 2025, and end on Sept. 30, 2029.
Call for Early Literacy Screening and Diagnostic Assessment Submissions
In 2022, the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) engaged in a comprehensive process to identify valid and reliable universal screeners for reading and reading diagnostic assessments as required by KRS 158.305. A list of currently approved assessments is available on the KDE Early Literacy Screening Assessments webpage. New submissions will be considered annually for inclusion on the KDE-approved list.
Interested vendors should review the Call for Early Literacy Screening and Diagnostic Assessment Submissions document, which outlines the process and includes a link to the required submission form. Forms should be submitted to Christie Biggerstaff.
The submission window for the 2024-2025 academic year will be Nov. 1, 2024 through Nov. 29, 2024.
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